guitar73

we arrived at the one and only jackson frost about 8:30am, and it seemed like a lot of other peeps had the same idea. I saw the snow line advancing east as we were driving up on the turnpike, so I knew it was def gonna snow, but the storm took its sweet ass time arriving. The first hour or so was good sliding for sure, but the snow didn't start in earnest until 10am or so. About then we went in for a quick snack, and to let the new snow to begin to accumulate. The new installment really made the day fun. t-bolt and happy glades were good, but the margins were still a bit thin. Elevator glades were soft under a crunchy topping. Floyds was sweet once the snow picked up. Not a lot of untouched areas due to the masses on the hill, but it was nice making a those soft turns. We closed the mtn down, and by then about 4" or so had fallen. Good times had by all. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

glad you all got out there OK. enjoy your trip!

i've skiied my rtm's in a foot of alta pow......it kicked ass. just didn't want to smear turn though.

last nite was a mixed bag of weather for the race clinic: rain, sleet, and then finally snow at the end of the evening. tinymoose and I arrived at the upper lodge at 6:30, booted up, and met with the crew at the racing office. no gates tonite b/c razor's edge was closed for grooming. they had apparently blown yuge amounts of the best snow on that trail. NM-DW was also closed for grooming. we made our way over to the 6-pack just lapped that all nite long. worked on inclination and angulation, and applying and releasing edge pressure thru different parts of the turn. the coaches had us try to do all these skills in the "right" or "textbook" way or time thru each turn, and then had us do the opposite. in this way, the coaches were showing us a range of feelings produced by these skills and the application of these skills, in hopes of giving us tools to employ as we saw fit at any point in our skiing. snow surface conditions were hero, but one had to be careful of catching there edges. I had a spectacular wipe-out on challenge, lol. last run of the evening was down main street/barneys. there were a couple of turns to be had in barneys, but for the most part it was total crap. après was at the upper bar where we all had nachos, wings, and buffalo dip. good times had by all.

really glad you are OK. get well soon!

glad to hear a good-so-far prognosis....

woah! that sucks. sending positive vibes.

day 2 the mtn skiied much better as snowmaking resumed, descent grooming efforts, and an inch or so of natural snow on the upper mtn. it also helped that traffic on the hill was much less than yesterday. so we rolled in the baller lot about 8:30-ish to meet up with the ski diva group at the main lodge. orda is dumping a lot of money into the renovation of the whiteface and gore base lodges....and to be quite honest, long overdue. however, it appears that construction on these facilities is slow-going since both base lodges at whiteface were a little disheveled in appearance. i bet the lodges will look $$$ once they are done. the face lift was first batter up this AM for a group photo op and smooth warm-up run. almost 20 ppl were in our group, and a wide range of skiing abilities were represented. the group split up after the warm-up run. most of the group took the cloudsplitter gondola up and headed straight for the summit quad. snow guns were torching most of the highly trafficked routes, and the man-made product was soft, but quite sticky. there was very little wind at the top (which was nice) and visibility was pretty good for most of the day. once we got up there, one lady in our group asked us what that noise was that she heard.....it was all the snow guns below, lol! she was from whistler, so she got a pass on that one, lol. we lapped the summit quad a few times, doing paron's, follies, and upper skyward. paron's had the best snow up top once again. skyward was OK, a bit scraped in places but it was manageable. victoria was skiing very nicely, and started to bump up a little bit as the day progressed. lunch was had down at the main base lodge. most of the food options were closed since it was a monday, but i was able to score a nice bowl of new england clam chowder and some corn bread. the afternoon was spent lapping cloudsplitter. upper northway was full-on blizzard riding, but the conditions there were probably ROTD for me. approach also had some nice snow remaining, since very few ppl were skiing that area. it became apparent to us why: upper wilderness was a literal sheet of ice. full attention had to be given to each turn. halfway down the conditions improved greatly. mtn ops was in the process of building the competition bump course, so i stopped to snag a photo of that for y'all. apres was in the wine bar in the main lodge. beer selection there was limited, but the room was nice and cozy and overlooked the mixing bowl area. dinner was had at smoke signals back in town. you must have their wings there....absolutely fabulous. i had their dry rub and the habanero hot wings (not hot at all, but full of great flavor). tinymoose and i closed their bar down as we had been chatting it up with the bartender, the servers, and the manager. this time we stayed at the hotel northwoods, which is located in the middle of the main drag. rooms are of average rating, but the location is killer. just park your car and walk to everything. that's fortunate b/c the parking situation is almost non-existent. the lot behind the building is *very* small and availability is first-come-first-serve. our first nite here we had to park in the municipal lot a few hundred yards away. not ideal. whiteface skiing about the same as i remembered from our last time here 8 yrs ago....a very tall mountain that skis small. i felt like i had to be "on" every turn due to the prevailing very hard and slick trail conditions. glad our skis had been tuned recently. if you want to rack up tons of vertical and work on your mad carving/edging technical skillz, whiteface is the place for you.

Pictures from yesterday. Conditions much improved. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

conditions look aweful

back from a nice long day out on the mtn. just got done with some fried pickles and some suds at the restaurant in our hotel. i am now enjoying a nice cup of dark magic, writing this TR on our bed, with a view of the backside of white face. we're meeting up with our crew tonite for some drinks at the cottage (love that place!). anyhow, today was our lazy day since the official gathering doesn't start until tomorrow. so we took our time this morning and got breakfast at the hotel. breakfast was just OK...standard buffet offerings. got to the mtn about 9-ish AM and paid for the baller parking lot near the base lodge...b/c that's how we roll. booted-up and did a warm-up run down the main valley area. from the get-go i could i would have to be spot-on with my edging skillz, as even at the base area the snow surface was quite firm. the first lap down confirmed my suspicions. next up was the cloud splitter gondola, approx 2300 vert in one go....not to shabby, especially for the east. we had hear ppl were headed up to the summit and slay some tasty lines down upper skyward, so we headed up. made the game-day decision to ski down pharon's run instead of upper skyward. best snow of the day, hands down, was on pharon. since whiteface is not a very large (expansive) mtn, a lot of the main trails got substantial traffic, and any soft areas were quickly scraped down to boiler plate. for other areas, it was full on bullet-proof hard pack and ice. keeping that traffic in mind, we decided to take a detour and headed down to the bear den area. this was a good call since basically no-one was down there, other than never-ever's getting lessons and such. by then breakfast had worn off and we decided to get an early lunch there at the bear den base lodge. around noon, friends of ours from MA had arrived, so we headed over to the main base lodge and skied with them for the afternoon. we took them to all the "good" spots to be had, and even by then temps had risen, and the snow was starting to turn buttery over that firm boiler plate ice. other spots remained firm and i swear they got firmer. we called it quits about 2:30-ish and then headed back to town. the wilderness lift area looked closed off b/c of a collegiate GS race that was taking place. those kids def had the appropriate ski for this mtn, lol. def saw some good turns made by them as they were free-skiing on the hill. we didn't hit up anything along the little whiteface ridge line, probably will do those tomorrow. lookout mtn was completely bare. slides had maybe 6" to 12" of snow in them....rest was ice from groundwater. pretty much any trail that did not have snowmaking on it was bare.

Here are a few pics. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lol... 10 yrs going strong. She's gonna kick ya in the knees Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Tinymoose and I arrived in lake placid today (1/27) for a couple days skiing at whiteface for 2018 ski diva east meet up. Currently, we are chilling at the lake placid brewery with some suds and relaxing from a rather uneventful road trip. Weather upon arrival was less than optimal...low 40's and a drizzle. There appears to be some snow on the ground, but I suspect the off trail is out of play for our time here. I'll use this thread to post updates. Won't be as epic as the Jackson Hole PASR invasion currently underway. Oh well, such is life. On tap for tomorrow is warm and soft conditions, with a chance of light snow later in the day and for tomorrow. Hopefully ulllr will come thru. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

meanwhile, back in PA.....reporting zero new in last 24 hrs....

everyone has good days and bad days on the hill, and that's OK. just relax a for a bit and try to have fun for a bit so you don't get into your head. you'd be surprised how much that can help. once you can approach skiing in a better mind, then go get lessons and practice what they show you. no matter what, don't dwell on the negative vibes. like gss said, this is a lifetime sport. take it one step at a time and you'll be just fine. also, keep up the "salty" TR's. they're solid gold.

bingo.

air felt damp last nite as they were blowing snow. not ideal. sorry to hear about the cookies.

sickbird.....way to get it guys!

arrived at the top lot about 6:15 pm, booted up and met up with the crew at the top of razor's edge for our first nite of gates for the season. the race team had a GS course set on razor's edge, it was a fair course with mostly moderate offsets and two delayed gates. upper headwall had a nice wide rhythm to it, and the gate set got progressively tighter with some very tight turns just below razor back. there was one massive offset at the top of the last headwall on razor's: i almost took a hip on that one. conditions on course were OK at the start of the evening, but by 8pm the course was very rutted and scraped off, getting faster with each run. legit ice was exposed at each gate, so making those turns got a bit spicy to say the least. I was having trouble staying in the course until our coach suggested i take a wider and rounder path through the course. so, i tried to make shred ted proud with large, sweeping turns. it def helped out, but it still felt like crap, lol. elsewhere on the mtn, the snow guns were blasting NM-DW, lazy, and the lower base areas. NM-DW had HUGE wales and looked very tasty. towards the end of the evening we saw some moron snowboarders sliding down challenge head first on their chests, while other ppl were doing the doug, zooming past them. it's a wonder there aren't more collisions at tru blue. anyhow, it was good to get into a legit GS course again and to hang with the peeps in the clinic.

depends on state law. from what I understand, it is the uphill skier's/rider's responsibility to yield to and avoid skiers/riders that are downslope of them. similar to fender-benders....the person at-fault is usually the person who rear-ended the other. so, I suspect the guy who crashed into the dude who died could be held liable. but, I'm not a lawyer. calling @Johnny Law on this one.

I always loved watching his ski movies, especially the older ones that he filmed and narrated. his commentary was just the best.

um...yeah. just think how that would make you feel...unless you don't. anyhow, I suspect this person will be sued for wrongful death or other such civil lawsuit.

i would think the other person feels horrible, or worse, about the entire situation.

they have released more info on the incident 53 year old man from philadelphia. apparently he had fallen and a skier ran into him. it was ruled an accident. http://www.wfmz.com/news/poconos-coal/man-dies-of-blunt-force-trauma-in-skiing-accident/689971701